The present invention relates to a control system for controlling regulating members in printing machines in which the regulating members perform translatory, continuously rotary or discontinuously rotary regulating movements.
A plurality of regulating movements must be performed in a printing machine and classified in three movement types. In addition to the translatory regulating movements, such as for example the movements of pull guides, sheet separating elements or the transverse movement of the distributing cylinder, rotary movements take place in the printing machine which can be subdivided into continuous and discontinuous rotary movements. The continuous rotary movements include, for example, the main drive of the printing machine and the movement of the inking rollers, whereas the discontinuous rotary movements include, for example, the pressure application and withdrawal movements and the lever drive. For actuating the regulating members, substantially four energy types are utilized. They include mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic energy. The mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic regulating members must be controlled in correspondence with their movement types, i.e. translatory, continuous rotary and discontinuous rotary, and in correspondence with the energy type used thereby, i.e. mechanical, electrical, hydraulic or pneumatic energy. The control must be carried out so that all regulating movements are performed with a constant ratio relative to a main shaft whose rotary speed always has a constant ratio to the rotary speed of the drive of the printing machine. Several types of control must be utilized. One possibility is that the drive problem is lost in the event of continuous or discontinuous regulating movement in a conventional manner by mechanical positive action. During automation of the printing program, it is necessary to satisfy in increasing degree the requirement of variability of the ratio between the regulating movement of the continuous or discontinuous regulating members and the machine speed. The requirement is satisfied only with the aid of non-centrally controlled drives. The control of such non-centrally controlled device requires high expenditures for controlling elements to sufficiently guarantee the accuracy required for the printing machine. In the event of discontinuous regulating drive, an exact arrangement of the control movement to the machine rotary angle must be controlled. In addition, to controlling connection of the functions of the successively arranged working stations, such as the connection of the movement of the respective regulating members, is necessary. For performing these complex control functions, path scheduling control is provided, which as known is used with shift registers in connection with different mechanical, electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic control elements. The continuous increase of the machine's rotary speed, and thereby increased dynamic requirements, make necessary reduction of the dead time and control time of the discontinuous regulating members, which can be attained only with the aid of expensive electronic compensation circuits. In modern printing machines, there are, as required by progress in automation, a plurality of control types for complex machine controls because of different movement types and different energy types to be used. The control is therefore vague and the coordination between the control types is very complicated.